Mighty No. 9 Developer Promises No More Delays

Comcept USA has delayed Mighty No. 9 so many times now that a lot of fans are slowly losing interest. The biggest problem is that the delays aren't necessarily related to the kind of content gamers were hoping for, but it's due to features no one asked for. Well, Keiji Inafune has promised no more delays.

NeoGaf picked out a few choice quotes from the creator of Mighty No. 9, Keiji Inafune, who expressed in a Q&A session that the crowd-funded title will not be delayed any longer. According to Gamespark, Inafune explained that part of the reason for the constant delays come from the fact that it's on so many platforms.

It is true that the game is on seventh-gen consoles, eighth-gen consoles, PC and portable devices. It's a lot.

Trying to optimize the game for each platform is likely off the table, so what they're likely doing is just making a standardized version that works on everything as opposed to having a high-end version, a mid-range version and a portable version. Then again maybe they are doing that for each of the platforms? There's no real way to know for sure but even AAA publishers have a trouble getting a game out on time for six platforms, so it's easy to understand that this could have been a major setback for the small Japanese development studio. Then again, maybe knocking off support for the Xbox 360 and PS3 should have been an option instead of supporting the legacy platforms.

There's also a tidbit of a quote about a potential sequel if the game manages to sell enough copies. Of course, if the game has to sell “a lot of copies” to be considered successful. I'm guessing a couple of million?

Releasing across six platforms basically gives the developers and Deep Silver a lot of leverage for potentially hitting 2 to 3 million copies sold off the bat. It would take a real miracle of disgruntled gamers to completely forgo the Kickstarter darling enough for them to miss the 3 million mark.

Some gamers just aren't sold on the title due to the dead atmosphere in the levels, the lack of challenge that was present in the old Mega Man and Mega Man X titles, and many still feel as if the art-style doesn't properly encapsulate the feeling of Mega Man the way some indie titles like 20XX have attempted to do.

While Mighty No. 9 started off with a lot of upward momentum when it first came onto the Kickstarter scene, some delays and a few scandals later and the game now sees itself at the bottom of the hill attempting to regain some hype before its release.

So when will Mighty No. 9 release? Well, the “final” date is supposedly set for February 9th in 2016 in North America. The game will release on February 12th, 2016 in the rest of the world.

Following the release of the game there will be an animated series based on the game, so there's some potential that it could be the next Mega Man if the game sells well and if the TV series does well. However, perceptions on the game are somewhat negative in most gaming communities and they'll need to change that around to win over the sales margins that they're likely gunning for.